The champagne method thus includes a step known as "riddling" which consists in making the sediment fall into the neck of the bottle by controlled shaking. The sediment is removed from the neck in a subsequent stage known as "disgorging".
The traditional method of riddling consists in putting the bottles in a rack and in raising them progressively from a horizontal or lying position to a vertical position with the neck pointing to the ground. This operation is spread out over a period of several weeks and is expensive. In order to remedy this drawback, French Pat. No. 69 13803 has already proposed riddling a set of bottles simultaneously by means of apparatus suitable for making the set take up the positions necessary for directing the sediment into the bottle neck. However, the apparatus described is manually operated and can only process a small number of bottles.
In order to remedy this drawback, French Certificate of Utility No. 80 00891 proposes an automatically operated device for processing wine according to the champagne method. In this device, the bottles, eg. 500 in number, are inserted in a pallet-crate which is itself inserted into the apparatus. The apparatus comprises a stand on the ground. A chassis or cradle is mounted on the stand and supports a support frame or platform which receives the pallet-crate. The cradle is pivotable about a axis which is movable relative to the stand such that under the action of two side arms it can move from a horizontal position to a vertical position with bottles which were inserted "on slats" finishing the cycle "on their points". Simultaneously with the pivoting, the support frame can rotate about a axis disposed at the middle of the cradle.
In practice, the cradle is driven by two screws disposed horizontally on the stand, with the arms each having one end hinged to the stand and the other end hinged to the cradle causing the support-frame or platform to tilt. The two screws are rotated by an electric motor. The same holds for the support-frame which turns about its central axis under the action of a second electric motor. The set of movements can thus be programmed to limit human intervention to a minimum.
Although the dynamics have been carefully studied, this known device nonetheless suffers from certain drawbacks. The forces that need to be applied are not constant, which leads to rather oversize motors; its bulk is relatively large when the envelope volume of the moving pallet-crate is taken into consideration; the screws are at ground level so one or more bottles breaking can jam the apparatus; and finally it is practically impossible to turn the support-frame in the horizontal position. Given the nature of some wines and of some additives, it can be impossible to obtain satisfactory riddling without an initial rotation in a horizontal plane while the bottles are on slats.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention remedy these drawbacks and substantially improve the quality of the riddling performed.